Thesh wrote:I'd guess that 99% of the time founder worship is about just looking for a justification for why the law should benefit conservatives when they don't want to consider the consequences. That is, cruel and unusual punishment, separation of church and state, rights of criminals, etc. are just guidelines, but the second amendment and disproportionate representation by design, well, "the founders did that for a reason" which is just saying "I don't give a shit about the problems".

In other words, what I said here: "...eclipsed by partisanship, where whatever method achieves the result you want is promoted as the right method."

Oh... and conservatives are not the only partisans. Saying so is itself an example of the wrongthinking I am referring to.

Jose

No, the founder worship does not happen from the left like it does on the right. At least in the US, liberals support policies and laws based on principle, conservatives support policies and laws based on what will benefit them at any given moment in time. If Democrats try and pull that shit and give a BS argument, they get attacked from the left, whereas Republicans just don't give a shit about the substance of the arguments as long as they are on their side. That's why we have Trump as President.

That is a very simplistic explanation, and being so simplistic, is suspect. It also does not coincide with my own experience.

Liberals support laws that support liberals. Conservatives support laws that support conservatives. Both sides hold up principles to justify their beliefs. You happen to agree with the liberal side, and thus are sympathetic to the principles they proffer up. They seem "right" to you. But that doesn't make them right.

Thesh wrote:That's why we have Trump as President.

Why we have the orange hairdo with small hands in the white house is not so simple, and the reasons differ depending on how far back you want to go in asking "well, why did that {prior contributing factor} happen? You can stop whenever you get an answer that satisfies you, and you will be satisfied at different places depending on what it is you already believe.

Perhaps the rise of the would-be king is better understood as a revolution - a coup d'etat. Why do revolutions happen? The answer is rarely simple, but usually comes down to {some population} is not being served.

Jose

Order of the Sillies, Honoris Causam - bestowed by charlie_grumbles on NP 859 * OTTscar winner: Wordsmith - bestowed by yappobiscuts and the OTT on NP 1832 * Ecclesiastical Calendar of the Order of the Holy Contradiction * Heartfelt thanks from addams and from me - you really made a difference.

gmalivuk wrote:A dictator who doesn’t care about the Constitution isn't going to be limited by its restrictions on government power what the fuck?

So... why bother with laws at all?

You pointed to a government that doesn't respect laws to justify why we need laws to protect us from the government. Most laws are meant to protect us from other citizens, and most of the laws to protect us from the government can be justified rationally without leaping to the extreme of a dictatorship.

In other words, my point doesn't (and wasn't meant to) apply to all laws or even all laws that protect us from the government, it was just a response to your bad justification of why we have to keep letting Nazis organize and recruit for genocide.

Child A: We need this rule so the teacher can't make us go back to class.Child B: That's silly. The teacher doesn't follow the rules of our games.Child A: Well then why have any rules at all?

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

“Everybody believes in free speech,” Ungar notes, “until you get to the topic on which they don’t.”

The states are moving to shut down expressions of speech now. I posted this link primarily for people from outside our borders. People not from here tend to view the US by looking at Washington. They should look a little deeper.

Where do you draw the line? I'm not comfortable with the idea of someone dictating which ideologies you can hold without being assaulted, which is in itself a fascist way of doing things.

It's not about which ideologies you can hold, it's about which types things you can loudly and publicly promote and recruit for. My answer is: not genocide.

Do you think citizens performing the violence against genocide-promoters is the best way to do that? Obviously you think it's acceptable, but is it ideal?

In other words, would you support making genocide-promotion illegal and have the government perform that violence on your behalf? Or again in other words, is the only reason you're promoting this violence now because you believe the government is not willing to change and enforce that law?

gmal ignored this, but I'm interested in hearing the answer from anyone who thinks it is okay for citizens to punch Nazis at random. Just curious where you're ultimately coming from and how much people do believe in first amendment rights.

SDK, are you afraid of institutional or implicit discrimination against Nazis? There's a lot of bad things that happen which you are blissfully unaware of. It's ok for that to happen to Nazis because we can't police everything. If it gets out of hand, then It'll just be another uncomfortable chapter in our long history. Maybe in the future, historians will talk down about how harshly we treated Nazis, but I'll bet you they won't.

Maybe you are saying Nazis are the next Jews or black people, because they suffer so much discrimination.

SDK wrote:gmal ignored this, but I'm interested in hearing the answer from anyone who thinks it is okay for citizens to punch Nazis at random. Just curious where you're ultimately coming from and how much people do believe in first amendment rights.

It's easy for the government to get out of hand so I'd rather they just round them up and put them in front of juries and such. I trust average joe citizen much more than I trust average joe cop. If we are constructing our hypothetical ideal world with full fairytale powers though, then yeah, I would like a useful and good police, I guess? Shucks does that stress the neurons though. It is hard to picture that.

LE4dGOLEM: What's a Doug?Noc: A larval Doogly. They grow the tail and stinger upon reaching adulthood.

SDK wrote:In other words, would you support making genocide-promotion illegal and have the government perform that violence on your behalf? Or again in other words, is the only reason you're promoting this violence now because you believe the government is not willing to change and enforce that law?

That's certainly my perspective. Serious promotion of genocide (by which I mean not some kid mouthing off on twitter, but rather something with organisation and intent behind it) falls on the same side of "too much a threat to be legal speech" as ordering a hit does (obviously less far down that spectrum, but still crossing the line IMO).

I also wouldn't say I'm promoting violence, I saying that I believe violence is a morally acceptable, though messy and imperfect, response to genocide promotion in some circumstances (namely circumstances in which non-violence is ineffective)

from anyone who thinks it is okay for citizens to punch Nazis at random.

Just for clarification I don't think punching Nazis at random is okay. I think punching Nazis at random is silly and counterproductive, though I do understand the impulse. The two circumstances in the context of this thread where I feel that violence is justified is in the disruption of and defence against active hate groups, where non-violent methods alone have proven ineffective.

Just curious where you're ultimately coming from and how much people do believe in first amendment rights.

I don't have first amendment rights myself, not being a US resident or citizen, but I'll say that I tend to believe that all speech should be legal except that which directly threatens peoples lives (outside of the context of self-defence). I also believe that genocide promotion does directly threaten lives.

gmalivuk wrote:You pointed to a government that doesn't respect laws to justify why we need laws to protect us from the government.

No, I pointed at a government that is moving towards the total disrespect for laws, to justify {...}. There is a big difference. We need laws to protect us from government, because they act as friction against the slide of government from a place of respecting laws to a place of not respecting them. Present government is showing us that this friction is necessary. This slide is not in the imagination; it is real. It is happening. The fact that it hasn't fallen off the cliff already is because of these laws.

If it ever comes to pass that Trump becomes King For Life, then it's over. But until then, I hold my point. We should not surrender our rights of free speech to the government. That slope has just gotten a lot slipperier.

Jose

Order of the Sillies, Honoris Causam - bestowed by charlie_grumbles on NP 859 * OTTscar winner: Wordsmith - bestowed by yappobiscuts and the OTT on NP 1832 * Ecclesiastical Calendar of the Order of the Holy Contradiction * Heartfelt thanks from addams and from me - you really made a difference.

ucim wrote:We need laws to protect us from government, because they act as friction against the slide of government from a place of respecting laws to a place of not respecting them.

That may be what you meant, but it's not what you said.

In any case, as others have pointed out we're already content with taking away people's right to directly incite violence, and it's really not as much of a slide as you seem to think to expand that definition enough to include promoting genocide. Some slopes are slippery, but that doesn't mean the slippery slope fallacy stops being a fallacy.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

In any case, as others have pointed out we're already content with taking away people's right to directly incite violence

Name one case in the US.

One case of what? I mean imminent lawless action, which is a standard that has existed for almost 50 years.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

gmalivuk wrote:I mean imminent lawless action, which is a standard that has existed for almost 50 years.

Yes, it's the tail end of a lot of law. Including something called the bad tendency test. Which I had never heard of. It seems almost tailor made for ucim's argument, given the examples.

Wikipedia wrote:In U.S. law, the bad tendency principle is a test which permits restriction of freedom of speech by government if it is believed that a form of speech has a sole tendency to incite or cause illegal activity. The principle, formulated in Patterson v. Colorado, (1907) was seemingly overturned with the "clear and present danger" principle used in the landmark case Schenck v. United States (1919), as stated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Yet eight months later, at the start of the next Term in Abrams v. United States (1919) the Court again used the bad tendency test to uphold the conviction of a Russian immigrant who published and distributed leaflets calling for a general strike and otherwise advocated revolutionary, anarchist, and socialist views. Holmes dissented in Abrams, explaining how the clear and present danger test should be employed to overturn Abrams' conviction. The arrival of the "bad tendency" test resulted in a string of politically incorrect rulings such as Whitney v. California (1927), where a woman was convicted simply because of her association with the Communist Party. The court ruled unanimously that although she had not committed any crimes, her relationship with the Communists represented a "bad tendency" and thus was unprotected. The "bad tendency" test was finally overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) and was replaced by the "imminent lawless action" test.

Zamfir wrote:How much improvement would people expect from something like hate speech laws in the US?

Given most countries that have mild hate speech laws have some of these same problems.... Not a lot.

Honestly, if we had laws like that I'd be more scared of their misuse by a majority of the population using them to declare 'reverse racism' to shut down speech like the below, to protect criticism of police or to prevent criticism of Zionism(which is often already called anti-semitic speech).

Prefanity wrote:We'll never see any stick, given contemporary First Amendment jurisprudence.

Even if hate speech laws DID stick, it wouldn't stop White Supremecists from marching and saying despicable things. You'd get some limits on what they were saying but look at Germany. You still have basically neo-Nazi marches and they have fairly strict hate speech laws when it comes to Nazis.

Thesh wrote:t's not evil, it's just a lack of principles. Conservatives in the US will change their positions at a drop of a hat:

Don't make the mistake of confusing republicans with conservatives; the two are vastly different. I admit it's an easy mistake to make, since republicans have historically run on conservative platforms to get elected, only to abandon them once elected.

The conservative position has not changed: smaller government with limited powers that focuses primarily on its constitutionally assigned roles and responsibilities, fewer government regulations, lower taxes, and less government spending.

Dark567 wrote:Honestly, if we had laws like that I'd be more scared of their misuse by a majority of the population using them to declare 'reverse racism' to shut down speech like the below, to protect criticism of police or to prevent criticism of Zionism (which is often already called anti-semitic speech).

I could not agree with this more, and I even think 'reverse racism' is a real thing. The more power you give government, the greater the potential for abuse. The bigger the government the smaller the citizen, or conversely, a government cannot abuse the power it doesn't have.

Many on the left see corruption and abuse of power in government at all levels. They see bigotry and intolerance permeating society. They speak of the evils of systemic and institutional racism. If you listened to their rhetoric, you would think we were living in a police state, yet these same people are the first to demand ever-greater power for the government.

mcd001 wrote:The conservative position has not changed: smaller government with limited powers that focuses primarily on its constitutionally assigned roles and responsibilities, fewer government regulations, lower taxes, and less government spending.

They like to say those things, but when you look at what they actually vote for, what they actually want, it's all about the culture war. They support higher taxes and spending on themselves, on the military, on the police, but they don't support it going to godless liberals or lazy minorities or foreigners, but they are fine with manufacturing subsidies. They want strong border controls, they want censorship of education, they want to block mosques from being built. There is no ideology, just contempt and authoritarianism.

mcd001 wrote:Many on the left see corruption and abuse of power in government at all levels. They see bigotry and intolerance permeating society. They speak of the evils of systemic and institutional racism. If you listened to their rhetoric, you would think we were living in a police state, yet these same people are the first to demand ever-greater power for the government.

This has always perplexed me.

Your examples focus on society. The government is not society, it is a product of society. An intolerant society has nothing to do with whether or not you're living in a police state, so I'm not sure why you're trying to equate the two (society and government), or why you're perplexed when others treat the two as separate.

mcd001 wrote:"Many on the left see corruption and abuse of power in government at all levels." That goes right to the heart of my point.

Right, and I assumed you brought up those examples to prove your point. But they don't prove your point - your examples talk about something else. I disagree with this quoted statement and thought you'd try to support it. I'm interested to hear why you think this is the case, or why you apparently think it's a paradox to believe in both larger government and intolerance in society. They don't seem very related to me.

SDK wrote:...believe in both larger government and intolerance in society.

This phrase confused me for a second, because you're using two senses of "believe in" simultaneously: "believe" in larger government as in support it, and "believe" in intolerance in society as in affirm that it exists.

(I once had a very confusing conversation with my grandmother trying to determine if her flavor of religion thought the Devil was a real being and not just metaphor or something, wherein she professed that she definitely does not believe in the Devil but that he is very real and definitely exists).

SDK wrote:mcd001 wrote:"Many on the left see corruption and abuse of power in government at all levels." That goes right to the heart of my point.

Right, and I assumed you brought up those examples to prove your point. But they don't prove your point - your examples talk about something else. I disagree with this quoted statement and thought you'd try to support it.

If you are in fact claiming that many on the left do NOT see corruption and abuse of power in government, then my point is refuted. There is no paradox in desiring more power for government if you believe that government is benign and working for your ultimate good. But that statement does not square with my perception. I don't have to go any further than the "Trump Presidency" and "Police Misbehavior" threads on this very forum to find examples of rampant disdain and distrust of government power.

For me, that is the paradox. People who are clearly suspicious of government power and authority, but want to give it even more. Who believe that any new powers to tax or regulate bestowed on government will be used for good and never turned against them. If this is what you believe, you are not part of the group I find so perplexing.

There's no paradox, you are just ignoring the individual issues themselves and trying to reduce everything to black and white principles. Also, I should note that conservatives see law enforcement and military as legitimate and those are the areas that have the greatest potential for abuse.

Thesh wrote:There's no paradox, you are just ignoring the individual issues themselves and trying to reduce everything to black and white principles. Also, I should note that conservatives see law enforcement and military as legitimate and those are the areas that have the greatest potential for abuse.

Basically this, yeah. There's no paradox if you look at the goals. Yes, government power can be abused. Yes, increasing the reach of social programs does increase the power of government. Does that have anything to do with police on civilian violence or Trump being an asshat? No, not really.

Frankly, I think most Western governments operate very well, for the most part. You're pulling out specific examples of governmental abuse and calling that "at all levels", which is just wrong. Most of the government is working great! Some areas need to change how they operate. Some others need more power to better advance social goals. I'm guessing you're looking at "the government" as one big monolithic entity, but it's pretty far from that. There is no paradox once you realize that fact.

Specifically, as a member of the State University System of Florida, it is itself a state entity and as such is not allowed to discriminate against speech except in very limited circumstances (which is how they prevented Spencer from coming directly after Charlottesville).

What these narcissists--and really, who would say "I was born inherently better than you, and therefore am naturally entitled to more privileges than you," except a narcissist?--want is attention, attention, attention, so that they can bring their vile message to a wider audience and invite more narcissists to join them.

What if decent people continued to condemn the statements and tactics of racists...but ignored their publicity stunts, thus refusing to give them attention-getting photos and videos of confrontations?

It seems counterintuitive, I know, not to counter-protest something so abhorrent. But there are other ways of not remaining silent. If there's no physical counter-protest, there's less drama, and therefore less publicity.

One recent application of this approach, currently underway in San Diego, California, where the prototypes of the proposed border wall designs are under construction in Otay Mesa:

Since construction began Sept. 26, there has not been a single protest or demonstration against the wall. A much-discussed designated area for demonstrators never materialized.

[...]

That’s because local organizations that are opposed to the wall and the broader Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration were not interested in drawing attention to the project.

Enrique Morones, founder of the group Border Angels, said he met with a DHS official he identified as Tim Quinn, the executive director for CBP’s Office of Intergovernmental Liaison, for two hours before the project began.

He told him what he said he later told both Sheriff Bill Gore and San Diego Chief Shelley Zimmerman: his group and others weren’t planning to protest.

“By doing that, it brings more attention to it,” he said. “It does more harm than good.”

Like other activists Morones said the likelihood that Congress would approve the billions of dollars needed to construct the wall is remote.

“People don’t want to contribute to Trump’s free press, for a wall that won’t be funded,” said Wendy Batterson, an activist and one of the leaders of the anti-Trump group Indivisible San Diego.

CorruptUser wrote:Vampires may be more moral than Nazis because they didn't choose to be vampires, but neither did hookworms choose to be hookworms but I still say it's a good thing to exterminate hookworms as well as vampires, whereas it's possible to reform a Nazi.

Can't speak for hookworms, though. (Only the .303 bookworms, and they can probably only pupate, not reform.)

ETA: And I'd put Vetinari as Lawful Neutral (FCVO "Lawful", that he is free to define himself) with an acknowledgement that this presents a decent case (under a higher authority) for revising that to Neutral Neutral... But that's probably enough Discworld diversion.

Depends which version of vampires we are going with. In most cases the vampires are the incarnations debauchery, illicit sex or drug use, often as a metaphor for the parasitic nobility. Their craving for blood is not even close to the human craving for meat and sex. Their moral compass is rather akin to an advanced drug addict in a state of withdrawal, with neither the desire nor even the possibility of improvement.

Buffyesque vampires (barring exceptions, like non-Angelus Angel, chipped Spike, possibly even Vamp Willow (psychologically 'improved') for he brief time out of the Wishverse) are the "there's no compass, no nurture, only nature" type. Blade vampires seem race-loyal in their lusts, but (some) have managed to be smarter in how they get their fix. The Underworld series seems to breed even more thoughtful-not-thoughtless individuals. If you look at (at least the UK original) Being Human, you can see the desire beimg sated/displaced more reliably by those who want to, and True Blood potentially goes the whole hog (nasty vampires were mostly nasty humans, that are now vampires). I've no idea how Twilight works, but it sounds like it mostly lets personal will prevail above any base nature that might exist.

Though this is still an aside to the supposed reason for this thread, and perhaps deserves a further thread-split before I ought to say anything more about it (if not already necessary).

ObsessoMom wrote:What these narcissists--and really, who would say "I was born inherently better than you, and therefore am naturally entitled to more privileges than you," except a narcissist?--want is attention, attention, attention, so that they can bring their vile message to a wider audience and invite more narcissists to join them.

What if decent people continued to condemn the statements and tactics of racists...but ignored their publicity stunts, thus refusing to give them attention-getting photos and videos of confrontations?

That was the traditional advice for dealing with internet trolls, and that's really what these people are: the real-life equivalent of internet trolls. As you say, the main thing they want is attention, and to feel better than everyone else. This is why 4chan's "normies" slang for everyone-who's-not-a-4channer kinda makes my stomach turn. And just look at the correlation between troll havens like 4chan and these meatspace scumbags (like how "kekistan" was one of the "nations" represented by the Unite the Right rally). These people's entire MO is being disruptive for the sake of drawing attention to themselves, like hyperactive children, and I've no doubt that if somehow their goals that stand out most to our society (the racist and sexist stuff) were achieved, and they ended up in a bland cishet white male world of homogeneity, they would find some new lines with which to divide up that society as an excuse to continue throwing tantrums to make themselves feel special.

that would be cool if the main thing they wanted was attention, but the main thing they actually want is me & everyone like me dead, so. like. ignoring that doesn't make it go away. it's just convenient for the white people who aren't the immediate first-line targets of their genocidal rage.

You want to know the future, love? Then wait:I'll answer your impatient questions. Still --They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,The cards and stars that tumble as they will.